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The 21st-century paralegal: from interviewing prospective clients to managing documents at trial, today's paralegal participates in every aspect of an attorney's practice, bringing organization and perspective to complex legal tasks.

Article Excerpt
After Hurricane Katrina decimated the Gulf Coast, Regina Valenti, the senior paralegal for former AAJ president Russ Herman, swung into action. The firm's New Orleans office had been left with little electricity and was running on backup generators. She and an attorney, armed with flashlights, carried the firm's computer servers down 14 flights of stairs and then drove them to the firm's national office in Atlanta.

Because many staff members were able to work on laptops and many documents and other data had been stored electronically, the firm got back on track quickly, setting up temporary offices within days in three other cities. But some issues remain unresolved.

"Our biggest problem still is lost files and lost research and re-creating things," Valenti said. For example, two weeks before Katrina, Valenti sent certified letters to some potential clients, telling them the firm had decided not to take their cases. Then the hurricane hit.

Valenti knew that the statute of limitations on those claims would end a month later, but the destroyed postal system could not provide receipts showing who had received the letters. So she arranged to file suit on behalf of the people she couldn't speak with to confirm declining their cases. "We had to get those people to a point in their cases beyond the immediate deadlines so that they could decide whether to go find a new attorney or how to proceed," she said.

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Valenti also briefly stepped in as a recruiter for the firm. After Katrina, there was no one left in the city to fill job openings, so Valenti kept an eye out. When the firm needed to take over a big class action with a lot of clients, she produced the resume of a paralegal she knew who was moving to New Orleans. The firm hired that paralegal within the week.

While most paralegals aren't responsible for keeping a firm running after a hurricane, many of Valenti's duties are typical of those found in today's paralegal job description. Legal knowledge, good communication skills, and multitasking proficiency are essential for the job.

Every day brings a new challenge, whether it's an attack by the defense in the courtroom or by Mother Nature herself. But paralegals stand prepared for anything, and their support and assistance keep attorneys organized, cases on track, and law firms running smoothly.

"My attorney introduces me as his right hand and his left brain," Valenti said.

David Landay, a sole practitioner in Pittsburgh, echoed that sentiment. "A paralegal is a lawyer's right arm," he said. Landayworks with one full-time and one part-time paralegal. They order medical records and bills; prepare file summaries; schedule depositions; answer discovery requests; and prepare trial exhibits, estate inventories, and family settlement agreements.

"We give our paralegals much of the work that attorneys do," said David Lansner of New York City, who works in an office with eight attorneys and five paralegals. "They meet with clients, speak to adversaries, prepare drafts of many documents (such as letters, pleadings, discovery notices, and deposition questions), sit in on depositions and trials,...

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